does your floppy light stay on constantly?

is it set up for read/write access to the floppy in the bios?

is it set to the correct density 1.44mb 3.5" in the bios?

can you boot a dos or win98 boot disk on it?

have you tried a diffrent floppy interface cable or switched the cable around the other way?

just the 1st few things i would ask ya if i was trouble shooting....

and now as for upgrading, you wanna keep the same box, cdroms, modem, sound card, and such and upgrade the mobo, chip, and ram for under 500$?? thats easy...i can hook you up with some screaming deals on a board/ram/chip combo, and i can even set it up so you can pick them up in slc or i can bring them next time i come....

personally, knowing you have an AMD 450 K6/2 now, i would make the jump to a celeron or a duron processor, maybe an athlon, depending on if your AMD brand loyal (i am not, but some people are) 1.1 GHz or faster definately (AMD=$130 or so for 1.1-1.3GHz, Intel=$120 or so for 1.0-1.1GHz)

next as for motherboards plan to spend at least 80$ for a nice one, and more like 110$ for a top of the line with DDR memory support for your hot new chip....i recomment Tyan, Asus, Abit, or EpoX.

and to round out the combo, you'll need RAM, at least 256Mb in my opinion, as you run XP, and it will take all you can throw at it...so thats about 65-70$ there...

the last thing i would recommend would be a new video card, im sure your computer now has an old PCI card in it, and new systems demand AGP, so tack on another $100 for the a nice GeForce 2 MX 32Mb video accellerator (i promise you wont be sorry in the least)

lets see, total that up:

CPU $130.00
Motherboard $110.00
256Mb RAM $ 70.00
GeForce2 MX $100.00
12pack of Bud$ 11.99 (for set up fees of course)
-------
421.99

looky looky thats under your 500$ limit and would rock your current setup! regardless to say i do this all day everyday.....im a computer dOrk..and you knew that...lol

1999 Contour SE comfort package zeeeetec VCT, that light blue colour

Mods:
*Sony Mobile ES Deck, MTX Subs, Precision Power Amp, Boss tweeets
*Mondeo Antenna Mod, stock antenna hole filled and shaved
*Tinted glass
*Lower bumper grille custom (wow took me nearly all afternoon)
*KKM intake, platinum plugs, full Mobil-1 Synthetic oil conversion
*zetec badging

Future:
*Clear corners/blue turn signal lamps (when i get the testicular fortitude)
*exhaust/rims (when i get the money)
*sidemarkers/remove door dings (when it gets warm outside again)